When I was in school at Auburn University in the early 90s, Wire Road was known primarily for the high tally of DUI arrests occuring along its corridor. It made sense, I suppose. New Fraternity Row lies just off its curves and the campus itself within a few hundred yards. Most avoided it altogether in those days.
If you chose to risk its winding path away from campus, you eventually reached a part of the Auburn area that a majority of students never saw. To anyone whose primary focus was supposed to be fixed on academics, the clubs on the outskirts of town spelled nothing but trouble. They were locally driven and very blue collar. They existed on a different plane than the soft, trendy bars that catered to the youthful population. They trudged on night after night trading large crowds and certain profits for specific after hours clientele at home with aimless drifting in western ghost town ambiance. Names like Champs, the Struttin’ Duck, Pourhouse, and Fat Daddy’s would sully an otherwise refined conversation in mixed company. Patrons had to be able to thrive in dark, smoke-filled rooms where loud live music and bar fights were commonplace. No one was wearing their sorority letters without having them strung up with their bra on the rack of a deer head, likely mounted after a violent death at the hands of someone who now shoots pool in its shadow.
A lot of underappreciated musical talents strolled through those doors. Adam Hood, Tony Brook, and Justin Johnson still appear from time to time, never completely severing ties with Wire Road. The band Alabama Union was formed some years ago in a fateful gelling of local talent including Hood, Brook and occasionally Johnson. You can have a beer today with Joe Bagley or Chris Posey on any number of nights along Wire. They were also on and off members of the Union. The band could have easily been called “The Wire Road Boys”.
Champs, The Struttin’ Duck, and Pourhouse are all gone, but Fat Daddy’s currently carries the late night torch and I’m there three times a week even today. After renewing my bartender lifestyle, and with the late night cash counting procedure I described in the “Today’s Schedule” entry changing over the years, I felt obliged to dust off my late night card and get it punched once again. And until I can’t do it anymore, I’ll see to it that the Wire Road flame never burns out.
Sometimes when you bring the late night Wire Road thunder, you get lost in the storm.